National

In her Debating Our Rights series, Meg Mott, Professor of Politics at Marlboro College, presents the Second and Third amendments, two freedoms that address the role of the military in our constitutional democracy.

Steven Sinding, former director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, considers Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement's aims to address the excesses of the Gilded Age, and what we can learn and apply to today's problems.

Dr. John Reuwer of Physicians for Social Responsibility talks with host Margaret Harrington about the Back From the Brink Campaign which is a call to prevent nuclear war. They discuss the recent Vermont Council on World Affairs presentation by Dr. Ira Helfand titled “Nuclear Negotiations.” Video of the August 6 Hiroshima and Nagasaki vigils in Burlington is shown.

In March 2015, a war in Yemen made the economy much worse than it had been in previous years. As a matter of fact, the Yemeni economy is very weak in comparison to the counties next to other countries in the region, for example, Saudi-Arabia. The violence of the war caused thousands of victims to be injured and to suffer from a severe lack of food, drinkable water, medicine, and safe shelter.

The Yemeni children have been affected by the war the most. They are suffering from insufficient medicine for many treatable diseases resulting from the war. These include cholera, flu, diarrhea, and fever. Additionally, the Yemeni hospitals do not have enough trained physicians and specialists on staff. Although the entire Yemeni population has been affected by the war, it is the children who suffer severely. Some of the children have been critically injured or lost body parts, and there is no medicine to treat them.

We have a BHS student, Kawther Hashim, organizing and supporting Yemeni children. She is joined in the studio by her father, Ahmed Lateef. We are proud of her initiative to raise awareness.

Building on the accepted science that climate change is real and caused by human activity, BURNED: Are Trees the New Coal? takes a hard look at the latest false solution to humanity’s vast energy appetite: woody biomass.

Sarah George, Chittenden County State's Attorney, and Skyler Nash, UVM Student Activist, talk with Andrew Champagne, member of the State Democratic Committee, about local, state and national politics and their specific work on criminal justice reform.

Host Robert Maynard discusses American conservatism as a “fusion” of the libertarian concern for individual liberty and the traditionalist concern that our thought be grounded in transcendent truth. We start with the notion that critics of America should “go back to where they came from” and question whether this sentiment really represents the best of the “fusion” of the trends I am identifying as the bedrock of American conservatism.